


Round and Round the Garden

by Anglophile_Rin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kidlock, nanny - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 20:01:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anglophile_Rin/pseuds/Anglophile_Rin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma would play with Sherlock, and sing to him, and teach him things no one else knew – like how faeries glowed in the dark, and funny songs about teddy bears that ended in her tickling Sherlock on the ribs (his absolute most ticklish spot) and him running away giggling (but not too fast, because the best part was when Emma caught him up in a hug, kissing the top of his curly head and carrying him away to find a cookie).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and Round the Garden

When it came right down to it, Sherlock Holmes was actually quite an ordinary little boy.

Yes, he was clever. But cleverness was something to be expected in the Holmes household, and so no one ever really remarked on it, and thus, it wasn’t something Sherlock considered to be special or different until he started at school.

 

At the age of three, Sherlock had yet to start school. And so, in his own mind, he was ordinary. He climbed trees in the garden. He waded in the pond in the forest out back, catching frogs and toads and small fish, figuring out how the fish breathed through cuts in their necks and so he couldn’t hold them for long, and frogs and toads could breathe the air, but were much more adept at getting away from him.

He had a habit of humming elaborate tunes to himself as he played or read (much like his older brother, Sherlock had started reading at the age of two, and was by now quite addicted to it), and liked to try and imitate the sounds in his head on Mummy’s piano and the strings of Father’s violin when they weren’t around.

And, like many normal little boys of well-to-do families, Sherlock had a nanny. Her name was Emma, and Sherlock loved her very much.

 

Emma was the nicest person in the entire world. She didn’t scold him all the time like Father did, or ignore him like Mycroft did when he was home from school, or fuss over him like Mummy. Emma would play with Sherlock, and sing to him, and teach him things no one else knew – like how faeries glowed in the dark, and funny songs about teddy bears that ended in her tickling Sherlock on the ribs (his absolute most ticklish spot) and him running away giggling (but not too fast, because the best part was when Emma caught him up in a hug, kissing the top of his curly head and carrying him away to find a cookie).

 

Even though Sherlock was quite ordinary, Emma made him feel different. Not different like he would feel in a few years when the girls would call him freak and laugh at his skinny chest in swim class, or when the boys would hit him in the face because he was smarter than them, or even different like cocaine would make him feel when it would one day course through his veins and make him feel like the most clever man in the entire world. Emma made him feel different because no one else was as loved by her as Sherlock Holmes was, and he couldn’t say that about anyone else. Certainly not about Mummy – she obviously preferred Mycroft. Sherlock thought it was because he was taller.

 

Emma would hold his hand when they crossed the street, but she knew enough not to remind him to look both ways because Sherlock _obviously_ knew that.

Emma would let him pick out his own clothes in the morning, and gently reminded him when he missed a button rather than sighing in exasperation and undoing them all, just to do them back up herself.

Emma would buy him his favourite sweets and let him have them before dinner rather than after, because she knew Sherlock didn’t like how most things tasted, but that he would eat them if his mouth still tasted of chocolate or caramel.

Emma knew exactly how to tuck him in at night (tucking the blankets all around tightly so that he was cocooned, but not tucking in his feet so he could wriggle out if he had to pee without ruining it), how many stories he needed before he could fall asleep and exactly how many kisses were the perfect amount (three, usually, but four if Father had been cross with him).

 

Yes, there was no one in the world Sherlock Holmes loved as much as he loved his nanny Emma.

 

***

 

Father was quite fond of Emma, as well. Sherlock could tell, because he would look at her and smile, and often found reasons to touch her arms or move her hair. But Emma never tickled Father after rhyming about bears, and that made Sherlock smile.

 

Sometimes, Sherlock was so ordinary that he was pretty sure Father didn’t notice him at all. Those times he would even try to kiss Emma. She would blush and frown and try to leave like Sherlock did when he was being fussed over by Mummy’s sisters (quite desperately, but sneakily at the same time so that it wasn’t noticeable and therefore ‘rude,’ as Mummy insisted it was). Sherlock didn’t like when Father did that, because Father always got what he wanted eventually, and that would make Sherlock less special. Because Emma would eventually love Father as much as she loved him.

 

That wasn’t fair at all.

 

Sherlock was sulking about this at dinner, pushing his peas around his plate. Mycroft kicked him under the table, and shot him the glare that meant “sit up and behave or you’ll be scolded again.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. Mycroft thought he could tell Sherlock what to do, just because he was taller and older and went to school.

 

Maybe Sherlock should have listened, though, because soon enough Mummy was giving him an appraising look from across the table.

“Sherlock, sweetheart. What’s the matter?” she asked, delicately cutting her meat.

Sherlock shrugged, playing with his peas some more.

“Sherlock,” Father started sternly. “Answer your mother.”

“I don’t want Emma to love Father as much as she loves me.” Sherlock mumbled. “He keeps trying to kiss her and she’s only supposed to kiss me – three times at bedtime, and after she tickles me.”

 

After that, there was a lot of yelling. Sherlock was sent up to his room, Mycroft dragging him up the stairs by the elbow. Father was telling Mummy to keep her voice down, and that people would talk, and Mummy was shouting words Sherlock had never learned before, and Mycroft told him he must never repeat.

 

Sherlock sat on the floor next to his bed with his knees up to his chest, while Mycroft paced near the door. He asked Mycroft if he knew any nursery rhymes or faerie tales, but he didn’t. Not even the short one about teddy bears in the garden.

 

***

 

The next day, Father was gone, even though he didn’t have any big meetings this week. Mummy didn’t even come out of her room for breakfast (even though eating breakfast in your room made mice, everyone knew that), and Mycroft was keeping his back very straight and his chin very high in the air.

Even Emma seemed strange, giving Sherlock extra hugs and kisses (a whole four at bedtime, even though Sherlock hadn’t been scolded once all day), and smiling very big, but seeming sad at the same time. She blushed a lot whenever they passed the hall to Mummy’s room, and she didn’t rhyme about teddy bears even once, though she did read two extra stories before she thought Sherlock was ready for sleep.

 

It wouldn’t be long before Sherlock realized it was his fault Father went away and upset Mummy so much (Mycroft was always reminding him when they quarrelled), even though he was sure that somehow it had more to do with Father trying to get Emma to love him than Sherlock talking about it.

 

***

 

About a week had passed since Father had left when Emma didn’t show up one morning. Mycroft was still home from school on vacation, and so he got Sherlock ready for the day, picking out his clothes and huffing in frustration when Sherlock missed a button and undoing them all to do up himself. He brushed Sherlock’s hair without wetting it first, so it all stuck out like big, fluffy candy floss, which embarrassed Sherlock so much he was on the brink of tears all day, trying desperately to flatten it with his palm.

 

No one seemed to know where Emma was, or why she hadn’t come to watch Sherlock. Sherlock worried that she was mad at him like Mycroft was, and that she wouldn’t love him best anymore.

 

Mycroft eventually got annoyed with Sherlock (it wasn’t his fault that Mycroft didn’t like frogs or fish or even making up songs in their heads) and sent him back in the woods to play while he did some homework.

Sherlock was quite happy to run out back, trying to find a really, really tall tree to climb, or maybe a new creek where there might be different kinds of fish. Sherlock had a theory that if different fish had more or bigger cuts, they might be able to breath longer in the air.

 

Sherlock was climbing the highest tree he’d ever seen. He could see his house from halfway up, with Mycroft in the yard and Mummy’s curtains pulled tightly closed. If he looked another way he could see his favourite creek, and that jumper he had lost the week before. He was just scrambling down to fetch it when he saw a bit of red peaking out from the leaves on the ground below his tree. Maybe he had lost another jumper…

 

Once on the ground, Sherlock reach down to tug up on the cloth. It wouldn’t move at all, so he brushed away the leaves and dirt. Well, that’s why the red wouldn’t move! Emma was attached to it! She must have been playing hide and seek and forgotten to tell Sherlock first. He laughed aloud at the thought of being clever enough to find her anyway.

 

“Emma, I found you. I’ve been very worried. First Father left, and then you did. I should have known better.” Sherlock settled down on his bottom, waiting for Emma to get up and tickle him like she always did when he found her.

 

That was odd.

 

Maybe she was asleep.

 

Sherlock shook her shoulder, starting to frown, but Emma still wasn’t moving.

 

“Emma, won’t you please wake up?” Sherlock whined. The dirt was a bit wet, and his bottom was getting quite cold sitting here. He took her hand in his, drawing slow circles over the palm. “Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear. One step…two step…tickle under there.”

 

Still nothing.

 

Sherlock kissed Emma’s forehead (four times, because he thought she might need the fourth, even though as far as he knew she hadn't been scolded), then stood to go and tell Mycroft that Emma was sleeping and needed to be carried back home.

 

***

 

It would be a long time before Sherlock saw another dead body.

 

It wasn’t quite as long before he put two and two together and realized what, exactly, had happened, though he’d never see Father again. The fact that he got away with it gave Sherlock an obsession with seeing bad people punished, and so when Carl Powers died and no one else noticed his shoes were missing, Sherlock became obsessed with it. And then, when he was older and that cocaine was making him feel like the cleverest man in the world, he stopped at the crime scene he had stumbled past, letting the dumbstruck grey-haired detective know what he had missed so that that particular killer would be caught.

 

Somewhere in between, Sherlock learned to delete things. It was easier to delete most of Emma. He fought with himself a long time over it, but in the end he decided that not caring was easier if he couldn’t remember the fact that he was once loved most of all.

 

Though, he never could quite bring himself to delete a little rhyme about teddy bears, going round and round the garden.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Story was inspired by the fact that Sherlock randomly knows the "round and round the garden like a teddy bear" rhyme, when he seems to know so little else of pop culture. Also, in the extras of series one, Benedict lets slip something about Sherlock letting slip something about his father - and so, this little ficlet was born. Hope you liked it :)


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